Gender Bending Jiz Lee Blurring the Edges of Art and Porn

By Troy Michael

I can’t remember the name of the film I first saw queer performer Jiz Lee in, but I am pretty sure it was “Courtney Trouble’s NOSTALGIA.”  There was small stage, like a store front theatre with a group of twisted bodies fucking as the crowd looked on. Jiz Lee was one of those performers. The tan, black-haired performer was wearing a white strap-on and fucking a girl. The look on Jiz’s face was priceless; you could tell this gender-bending performer loved what they did and wasn’t in it for fame or fortune. Even better, Jiz’ finger-banged themselves until the performer had an exploding orgasm where they…well jizzed all over the girls.

Right then I knew I was sold on Jiz Lee.

The problem was I didn’t get a lot of movies to review from the smaller San Francisco-based companies this impressive performer was working for. I saw the multi-ethnic performer in one more film from one of those small companies where Jiz played a masculine male sporting a strap-on while fucking a girl in the kitchen, again Jiz’ performance was impressive.

Some of porn’s most influential female directors took notice and Jiz was soon working with or for Belladonna in “Strapped Dykes” (Evil Angel), Joanna Angel in “Exposed” (Burning Angel) and Tristan Taormino in “Rough Sex 3: Adrianna's Dangerous Mind” Vivid.)

This genderqueer porn performer was now a legitimate star in the industry thanks in part to their androgynous look, female ejaculation, vaginal fisting, strap-on performance, and fun sex-positive attitude.

The award-winning performer is (thankfully) breaking the mold of blondes with big fake tits and is making no apologies along the way. So it was a pleasure to sit down with this cute, sexy and well-educated performer to talk about who Jiz Lee really is and about their love for fists and ejaculation. Get your lube and your goggles, it’s Jiz Lee!

 

Were you born and raised in San Francisco?

No, I actually only moved to the Bay Area in 2000, from Maui Hawai`i. I came to attend college in Oakland, where I majored in Dance Performance. After graduation, I got a job as the Executive Director of a non-profit dance organization in San Francisco and performed with a number of modern and Butoh dance groups. I later started my own performance art and co-founded an explicit dynamic performance art duo called “twincest” with Syd Blakovich, my lover at the time, who I had also started my adult career with.

 

You have a beautiful look, what ethnicity are you?

Thank you. I like to use the word “Hapa” to identify. The name stems from a Hawaiian word “Hapa Haole” which is now used within Asian Pacific Islander communities to simply mean part Asian/Pacific Islander. I’m also proud of my First Nation ancestry, as well as my Sami and Scandinavian heritage which my grandmother more recently traced.

 

When did you start to realize you were outside the norm of what other kids were like?

I have to say that I’ve almost always felt a little like an outsider, in almost any group and at all times of my life. I think it’s the grey areas in my identities which makes my experiences unique but also very rich and complex.

 

Is your family understanding/supportive of what you do and who you are?

Yes, I’m lucky to have a very loving and supportive family. I’m not out to all of them about adult work, however I’ve been out about many other things such as my desire for polyamory and in the past the explicit/graphic nature of my performance art. I’m not sure everyone’s mother would appreciate their child sending them a photo of them in the SF Chronicle, naked. However my mother is usually more worried about me getting hurt riding my bicycle in the city.

My father is supportive of my work in adult, saying that if I further the genre he’s proud of me. He’s interested in the works of queer porn filmmakers I’ve been involved with, such as Shine Louise Houston and Cheryl Dunye. When I told him at dinner about one of my newest films being shot in Berlin, he joked, how did you become so radical? While he may not fully understand the nuances of gender identity politics, he describes me as gender-neutral, and I love him for being so open-minded. I’m very blessed.

 

Have you always been a sex-positive person?

Being sex-positive, for me, includes not shaming others’ sexualities and desires so long as they are consensual. Being queer, I’ve experienced shame and phobia. Sex-positivity extends to gender, queer orientations, kink, and if you extrapolate, ethical nature beyond simply sex. I believe I’ve always been a very open-minded person and have been curious about others’ experiences and viewpoints. I’ve never really thought anyone is “wrong”. Throughout our lives we’re given opportunities to learn about one another and each experience presents a new opportunity to grow.

 

You’ve worked under a couple different names (Beau Flex cracked me up) where did you come up with Jiz Lee?

Jiz Lee was the first one. The stage name was a joke because it’s very similar to my real name. And I ejaculate, so “jiz” is fitting. I also like that jiz has such a strong association with male ejaculate, so in taking the masculine name I can own or at the least, remind others that ejaculation spans sex and gender. In the second film I did, the script called for me to be a punky femme, so I went with Kaltes Klares Wasser from Chicks on Speed and that became Vasa.

Then for Shine Louise Houston’s pomo mocumentary “The Wild Search” I thought a slutty boi named Beau Flex would be funny. In another film, I was Gauge. For a while, I thought I would do a new name with each feature. At that time, there were only four, and I didn’t see a “porn career” being something that I would develop so I paid less attention to consistency. But really though, porn names are hilarious.

 

You've worked with some of my favorites/friends and porn's most influential people including Belladonna, Madison Young, Joanna Angel, Tristan Taormino – were they an influence on you before getting into the business and how was it working with them as one of your peers?

Working with them has been amazing. I hadn’t known Madison before working in her films, but I had been a fan of Belladonna, Joanna Angel, and Tristan Taormino. And Cheryl Dunye, who I admired in college as an indie filmmaker turned porn director. Belladonna was the first “idol” I worked with, and it was the first time I found myself struggling with feeling really nervous and the funny insecurities that follow. It was probably the best lesson I had in the business so far; learning the importance of simply believing in myself.

 

I know you have a lot of online projects you do, but do you have any aspirations of starting your own film company like Belladonna or Joanna or Tristan?

I was offered a video line a few years ago, but the ideas I have for film are abstract, twisted, and probably unmarketable. I’d like to play around with film and get some more experience behind the scenes before I’d do something truly from me.

In the meantime, I’ve loved independent creative features from folks like Danny Wylde and I can’t wait for my friend Mickey Mod to direct. I work behind the scenes for Pink and White Productions (Shine Louise Houston’s company) and am excited about some really unique projects coming out in the next few years. I could finalize a director’s vision for myself that would be appropriate to a porn audience, I probably would have started a few years ago… but the honest answer is that I’m not ready yet.

 

You are known for your ejaculation skills, which is beautiful, when did you first discover you could do this?

I love ejaculation! It’s the coolest feeling in the world to release sex fluids onto a lover through orgasm.

 

The first time I ejaculated that I was aware of, was when I was about 20 years old. I was on my bed, masturbating on the phone, and using a vibrating G-spot toy from Good Vibrations. I was really aroused and after I came (which felt like a very wet, surprising and hot orgasm) I looked to find a small wet spot on the bed about the size of a quarter. I had heard about female ejaculation so I knew that’s what it must have been. I also then knew how to recreate the sensation. And the rest is history. My relationship had just opened up and I was running around the city with a bag of lube and latex gloves, teaching hot new strangers to fist me and make me ejaculate. I recall one house-party where I squirted a stream that went OVER the person who was fucking me, to hit someone behind them. I was excited, to put it mildly. And it was about that time that I started doing porn. In fact, one of the best ejaculation scenes I have to date was captured in my very first scene in “The Crash Pad”. It remains one of my favorite porn videos.

 

You are also known for your love of fisting. Do you prefer to fist someone or be fisted? Have you ever been double fisted?

I love vaginal fisting, giving and receiving. I’ve been double-fisted, and I’ve held hands with my lover while double-fisting a friend. Fisting is amazing. I’m a huge fan of it. I’ve taught fisting workshops, have contributed to sex ed publications and books about fisting, and have performed the sex act in a slew of my films – many of which had to be creatively edited. In fact it’s one of my great disappointments in this era of feminist porn that DVD distributors do not allow to show it in fear that it may be deemed obscene. Perhaps it’s in the name? Director and friend Courtney Trouble and I have joked (quite seriously) about just call it Hand Sex from now on, in hopes that a “lighter” name might take the stigma off what is actually a very amazing, consensual, and really normal queer sex act. I hope we look back on this day and say, “Really? WTF?”

 

You do so many good things for the queer community. What drives you to do all you do?

Being myself. It’s a regenerating, cyclical charge to do something I love doing – essentially exploring my sexuality, and how it presents in a very exhibitionist way, and often an artful, and powerful way, to others. I am constantly questioning the roles I take and the ways I can perform them – what it means for queer visibility to participate in this film or that project, what it means for me. I have a lot of privilege within my work which I believe can push progressive values. I’m a very positive person -- and I hope it’s contagious!

 

In your down time what do you like to do?

I like to swim, go on jogs or hikes. I read (find me on GoodReads.com!) and listen to podcasts. I am kind of obsessed with RadioLab right now. I ride my bicycle and I hang out with friends at dive bars. I like to blog on jizlee.com and create websites and consult with non-profits and small businesses about social media and accessible web technologies. Karma Pervs (karmapervs.com) is my regular monthly fundraiser and I’ve earned over $2600 for queer/sex-positive charities through artsy erotic photos on the membership site. It’s completely volunteer and fun to see grow. I try to cram a lot of projects in my life. I have a full-time web production job for an ecommerce site, and I am a work-a-holic who schedules downtime. My guilty pleasure is watching TV. (“Through the Wormhole,” “Hoarders,” “Dexter” are my current favorites.)

Lately, I’m inspired to pick up things I used to do when I was younger, like the French horn – or maybe this time I’ll try the cornet. I’d love to get reunited with music. I almost went to school for experimental horn and I realized that I miss music in my life. I also miss dance and so I take class from time to time. That’s one great thing about SF – it’s a dance mecca. Right now I love hip hop dance class. The choreography is challenging and fun, and by the end of the class I am ridiculously sweaty. One of my favorite feelings is the adrenaline from being physical and how good it feels to breathe deeply and to drink water. The simple things.

 

What is something that your fans would be surprised to know about Jiz Lee?

That I’m not a lesbian! (And I’m not a vegetarian either!)

This may open a can of worms just as our interview is supposed to be wrapping up, but to put it in a nutshell: I’ve never identified as a woman or a lesbian because I think my own gender and sexuality – and often, the identities of my lovers too – exceed beyond “women loving women”.

I am queer and have all different kinds of lovers on film and in my personal life. I’ve performed with men, both trans and cisgender, and with other genderqueers as well as with trans and cis women. I think because I’ve done the most of my mainstream work with women, and because I am “assigned female at birth”, and appear to most viewers as “a girl” when naked, many assume that I am a lesbian.

In honesty, I don’t mind so much being read as a woman, if it means that I can bring dyke visibility or butch visibility to a larger audience. But the real me is truly, queer! If you are a fan and want to know and love the real me, you’ll understand that my gender is fluid, androgynous. For the last few years I’ve loved the pronouns “they/them” – actually used as singular pronouns by the English for centuries, and sites like Facebook use they/them when gender is unspecified – so it’s not that unusual.

It means a lot to me when fans and press make an effort to understand queer sexualities, gender identity, and respect my preferred gender pronouns. In my work I’m bringing my own sexuality and expression to a large audience, and hope that the journey can teach me a lot about myself in the same time that fans can learn about me.